Pages

Monday, February 22, 2010

Getting Old

Back a few months ago I was teasing Nick. To fully understand you need to know that we live just around the corner from a large private high school. On weekends in the fall, when they have home football games, the entire neighborhood is overrun with cars. People will park anywhere they can find a place and walk over to the game. So, on one random Friday night I walked into our living room to see him with the TV on pause, the lights off, peaking out the blinds of the front window. I am all like, "What the heck are you doing??" and he says, "There are kids DRINKING in that car!" And I am all like, "So??" and he is like, "Sarah....the are DRINKING! In the CAR! In front of our house! They are high school students and they are DRINKING before the game!" This is when I crack up. Because...well...who is this man. He is freaking out because some high schoolers are drinking a little before a football game? He is peaking out the blinds at them. He is just so horrified with the entire idea of it all. And this starts the new tradition of me calling Nick an old man. It was just so... mature. So very grown up coming from the man I have been with since we were eighteen and nineteen.

So I have taken joy in Nick's old soul. How he was so disturbed by this underage drinking. And not just that, but by the garbage the kids leave in our yard. By the overall rowdiness of the high school students. I just picture him shaking his fists at the young whipper snappers to stay off his grass! To shake a cane at them maybe. I have known that I am clearly the one of the two of us that has stayed young at heart. I don't mind the high schoolers drinking or hanging out on our street corner. I remember that time. It is all harmless. I get it.

But then...Sunday happened. I was running to Panara to get some lunch and I swing to pull into an empty parking spot right in front. "How GREAT!" I think. Then I slam on my breaks. There is a table in the spot. A table from the patio. Along with four chairs. Two of which have two college girls sitting in them. In shorts. I am annoyed. I mean, why in the hell are they sitting in a perfectly good parking spot? I notice the line of the sun. They are just over it. They wanted to eat where it was warm. So I back out and find another spot. One much much further away.

As I walk into the store I cannot stop looking at the girls. Annoyed with the way they are oblivious to their surroundings. As I walk into the store I hear a disagreement. Two college aged guys are arguing with the manager. The manager is flustered. They guys are enjoying themselves. The manager says it is not safe to sit out there. It is not safe to leave the table in the parking lot. The store is liable. bla bla bla. The guys are obnoxious and I feel for the manager. Finally they leave the store and rejoin the girls at the table. Laughing and talking. Not moving. As I leave the store I get stuck behind a car. A car with a sorority sticker. It pulls up next to the table and blocks the intersection. And it stays there. IT STAYS THERE. And they laugh. And they talk. And they clearly think the entire situation is hilarious.

You all, I got so mad. I was mad for the manager. I was mad that I had to park so far away. I was mad that now I was stuck behind the idiots. And so I hatched a plan. A plan to write a letter to the girls sorority and complain. To tell them how obnoxious and rude these stupid college kids are being because...because...

and then it hit me. I am old too. I totally would have been the idiot in the parking lot in college. I would have been the kid drinking in the car in high school. And here we are. Annoyed. Thinking "How reckless!" , "How inconsiderate!" , "How immature!!". Right. So, I am officially a grown up now. I just hate to think how much I annoyed the thirty year olds around me when I was 18 and completely obnoxious...and of course thought I knew everything. Good Lord.

PS. I decided to NOT send the letter. Once I calmed down I decided I was definitely not THAT old. Maybe in twenty years I would take the time to actual lodge an official complaint. For now I will just complain to you all.

Oh we're old... I realized it when I was in the General Admission area at the Kings of Leon concert and I threatened to punch a girl in the face if she pushed by me one more time... And now, I remember that time at the Dixie Chicks concert... How cool we thought we were smoking in the non-smoking section... Flipping people off for making us put our cigarettes out. I would have hated me too.

That's hilarious!! Tim and I have ALWAYS known we were an old couple... we stayed at his sister's for our first Christmas (she was away, we were house-sitting and we'd only been going out for about 2 months so it was an exciting time), and guess what we did on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year? We went for breakfast at the local garden centre (filled with old couples), then went for a walk round the American Military Cemetery and teared up as the chimes rang out at midday, and finally went shopping in M&S (a notoriously older people's shop)... what a funny day that was. I was 23 and Tim was 26, so not that old... but then again the first things Tim bought for us were a second hand hoover and a rocking chair... and then I spend a lot of time watching old comedy shows and knitting, knitting because Tim wants me to make him a cardigan and a cheesy Christmas jumper, so he can wear them, with his slippers and sit in his rocking chair. We LIKE being an old couple... it's fun, especially when you get to complain about all those obnoxious "kids", even when they are only a few years younger than you are!

Didn't we go into the men's restroom at that concert because the lines were so long and the men complained on us??? maybe that was the rascal flatts concert.

Those girls are part of the reason sororities get a bad wrap. You should totally send the letter.

Children/young people are getting worse each year. How much reader traffic would this blog get, "A day in the life of a high school math teacher..." You'd never believe some things and conversations we have in class. Kids really have no clue about life & consequences.